Nigeria’s Anglican archbishop, Peter Akinola, has declared that homosexuality is ”an aberration unknown even in animal relationships,” a statement so ignorant, you have to wonder how one gets to be an archbishop these days. Hundreds of species, from beetles to primates, exhibit homosexual behavior as a way of bonding or communicating. Of course, Akinola also believes it should be illegal for homosexuals to form organizations, read gay literature and eat together in pubilc places.
Akinola is not alone in his quest to get the gay out of the Anglican Communion. On Monday, the Communion gave the Episcopal Church of the U.S. a September deadline to stop blessing same-sex unions. “If the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the church in the life of the communion,” the statement said. The request to stop blessing same-sex unions was first made in 2004.
Seven archbishops showed their frustration with the Episcopal Church of the U.S. by refusing to take communion with U.S. presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, an outspoken supporter of gay congregants. Several Episcopal congregations in Virginia and one in Kansas have broken away from the national church because of the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of gay bishop Gene Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire, in 2003. Robinson, by the way, wore a bullet-proof vest under his cassock during the ordination ceremony.
